Happy Birthday Christopher!!!

Yesterday was my little or should I say big boy's Birthday!!! Happy Birthday Buddy!! I can't believe he is 9 years old already, seriously, doesn't it just fly by!?!?! I had such a busy day that I couldn't post yesterday. I asked him what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner and he made the menu....chicken cutlets, garlic mashed potatoes, butter noodles and asparagus!! So that is what I made him and the family for dinner. We had my parents over for dinner and cake! Christopher opened his presents in the morning before school and loved them...he got a few lego streetz racing sets. I felt bad because he didn't have time to play, but these things have to be built and between the two of us it will probably take days to assemble...lol!!

So we dropped off cupcakes for school, I was going to make little gum paste geckos for the top of the cupcakes, but it was getting late and the gum paste was not cooperating and it was not cutting nice. Finally at 11:15, I gave up and decided to just make some gecko cupcake toppers. My son wanted geckos...he was going to get geckos. I ran down and started punching the scallops and cut out 25 geckos using the auto fill feature on the E and the LAB cartridge. Then got out my glue gun and started gluing it all together! I think they turned out adorable and the kids loved them at school!!

Christopher's cake was another story....we had a debate in the store. I was going to cheat and use chocolate frosting in a can, but he kept saying that that isn't what he wanted. He said he wanted icing....well, isn't it the same thing? Apparently not....frosting is what you buy and icing is what Mommy makes....according to Christopher. So, I whipped up a batch of chocolate icing....chocolate buttercream frosting (recipe posted at bottom of post)!! He said it was the best cake he's ever had....gosh I love that little boy!!! I used the gumpaste to make 2 gecko cuts and I was pleased this time with how it turned out....I still need a ton of practice, but altogether pretty pleased!! We put some special cupcake sparklers in his cake, but only lit one at a time because I didn't want the house to burn down....Christopher was so excited, it was pretty cool. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER....MY BIG 9 YEAR OLD!!!!!

Here is the recipe for the chocolate buttercream frosting...it is delicious and is enough to fill and frost an 8 or 10 inch cake!

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

2 lbs. confectioners sugar

2 cups white vegetable shortening (crisco)

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tbsp meringue powder

5-7 tbsp. water

1 1/2 cups cocoa powder